Lee Baker, a business manager at Midwich, commented: “The launch of this new professional audio division will position Midwich as the distributor of choice for resellers and integrators that undertake project-based work in key verticals such as education, leisure, hospitality, security and the corporate market. In addition to our market-leading range of displays and projectors, we can now provide public address, conference, voice alarm and evacuation systems, background music and paging systems, commercial amplifiers, call stations, wireless microphones, system controllers and loudspeakers.”

The new division comes during an eventful period for Midwich, which has recently added video conferencing to its ranghe and announced the acquisition of IP and analogue security system distributor Ubiqz.

“I’m very excited about the launch of our new audio division and the direction of our audiovisual business in general. This really is tremendous news for our customers,” said Midwich sales manager Lee Hooker.

In a concerted expansion of its pro-audio presence, world-leading MI manufacturer Gibson Guitar has acquired the Stanton Group – the parent organisation of KRK Systems, Cerwin-Vega! and Stanton DJ. Together, the companies will form the Gibson Pro Audio division.

The development follows the recent acquisition of Clear-Com by HME, and sees HME’s existing Pro Audio Division become part of Clear-Com. HME products joining the Clear-Com roster include the 2.4GHz DX-Series and UHF PRO850.

The new operation has been set up specifically to handle the MediaMatrix, Crest Audio and Architectural Acoustics brands. The announcement follows “an intense period of restructuring and careful planning".